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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27134752">never got the chance to ask her about</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/potato_writes/pseuds/potato_writes'>potato_writes</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>A Song of Ice and Fire &amp; Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Character Death, Established Relationship, F/M, Funerals, Grief/Mourning, Mother-Son Relationship, Tywin Lannister's A+ Parenting, not as much as I thought there was going to be though, this family has so many problems honestly</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-10-21</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-10-21</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 20:13:46</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>6,564</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27134752</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/potato_writes/pseuds/potato_writes</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>In retrospect, he should have known even before he answered the phone that it was going to be bad news.</p><p>*</p><p>after his mother's death, Jaime returns to Casterly Rock and tries to figure out what happens next.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Jaime Lannister &amp; Joanna Lannister, Jaime Lannister/Brienne of Tarth</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>23</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>59</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>never got the chance to ask her about</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Genna's line in affc about jaime not being his father's son apparently really got to me, because ever since I read it I've been wondering if he was actually more like his mother, which got me thinking about what his relationship with her might have been like had she lived a little longer, which led to this. I wrote half of this after waking up at 2 am so I claim no responsibility for how coherent or not it might be. also I should probably have been working on one of my two ongoing wips instead, but where's the fun in that?</p><p>this does centre around the death of a character, but it's not jaime or brienne if that's what you're worried about. also general warnings for Tywin being an absolute asshole, but that's par for the course with him at this point so nothing should surprise you there. </p><p>title from waitress, because that's an excellent way to make me cry even more about this one. I can also be found on Tumblr as <a href="https://www.tumblr.com/blog/potatothecat">potatothecat</a>. </p><p>enjoy this one (hopefully)! here's hoping nothing got too incoherent in the second half of it!</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>In retrospect, he should have known even before he answered the phone that it was going to be bad news.</p><p>Cersei never calls him anymore, not after their last big fight when she told him <i>choose, it’s either me or her</i>. But she’s still his sister, still his twin, and when his phone rings, the caller ID showing her name for the first time in almost a year, he can’t help but answer. He’s always been weak that way.</p><p>Brienne watches him worriedly from the couch as he stands and walks into the kitchen, his phone pressed to his ear. She wasn’t there when he last fought with his sister, but she knows what happened, and why, and he’s grateful for her concern even as he brushes it off in order to hear what Cersei has to say this time.</p><p>“What’s going on?” he asks her, after they’ve exchanged perfunctory greetings that are more reminiscent of long-separated acquaintances than siblings. “Is everything alright at home?”</p><p>It’s a dangerous question to ask, and he already dreads hearing her spit some vitriol in response to it, but for once she sighs and doesn’t respond to it.</p><p>“You need to come home,” she tells him, and he’s already prepared to refuse, the words already on the tip of his tongue, but then she says the words that send him reeling, staggering backward while his heart is torn from his chest and flung on the kitchen floor. “Mom’s dead.”</p><p>For a long moment, he can’t speak, his throat too tight to let the words out. “What…how…”“Tyrion,” his sister spits, as if that explains it, as if that’s enough to clarify the worst news he’s ever received in his life. “It’s all his fault.”</p><p>“I don’t understand,” he whispers, distantly aware that his entire body is shaking, that Brienne has appeared in the doorway and is talking to him, asking <i>Jaime, are you alright, what’s going on</i>, that his sister’s still speaking, telling him he needs to come back <i>right now, Jaime, there’s so much to deal with, you can’t hide from us forever</i>, and then Brienne plucks the phone from his hand and hangs up, setting it aside and taking his face between her hands, looking at him with so much <i>concern</i> that he wants to cry but he can’t, he <i>can’t</i>, and she’s <i>dead</i>, he never got to say goodbye…</p><p>“Jaime,” she says firmly, pulling him tight against her. “Jaime, you need to breathe. I can wait to hear what’s going on, you need to breathe now.”</p><p>He shakes his head weakly before burrowing into her shoulder, waiting for the tears to come, wondering why they haven’t yet, half-hoping they won’t because he hates when she sees this side of him, the weakness his father and sister have always hated he had. Still, how can he be strong now, as they’d want him to be? <i>My mother is dead.</i></p><p>“My mother is dead,” he repeats aloud, mumbling it against Brienne’s shoulder as she holds him, so warm and gentle even as he shudders from the storm of emotions swirling through him. “My mother is dead, and I didn’t even get to say goodbye.”</p><p>The tears come at last, and he’s sobbing before he understands what’s happening while Brienne whispers soothing words into his ear, holding him close to her warmth that’s the only real thing left in a world that’s shaking around him, when the only thought pounding through his brain is <i>my mother is dead, my mother is dead, and I wasn’t there when it happened, I wasn’t able to say goodbye.</i></p><p>						***</p><p>Casterly Rock is no less intimidating now than it was in his childhood, looming above their car as Brienne drives carefully up the winding road to his family’s vast, sprawling manor that’s been there for hundreds of years and will likely be there for hundreds more. Even in the full light of day, it’s all thick stone walls and too many dark windows, and he quickly ducks his head before he can take in any more of the building that still haunts his nightmares sometimes. </p><p>His palms are sweating, and he wants to wipe them on his pant legs, but he also knows he can’t go in there looking anything less than his absolute best if he doesn’t want his father to pick him apart, tear him down into tiny little pieces the second he sets foot inside. So he settles for clenching and unclenching his hands, focusing on the motion and trying to forget where he is, why he’s here.</p><p>Brienne parks the car at last but doesn’t get out right away, instead turning to him and taking his hands in her own, stilling them with the same gentle touch she’s been using since Cersei’s phone call a week ago. She’s only been to Casterly Rock twice before, both times disasters he doesn’t especially care to think about, but she knows what this place does to him, knows that getting as far away from here as possible is what drove him to the university in Oldtown, where they met. And she likely remembers the last two times as well as he does, though she’s kind enough not to bring them up.</p><p>“Look at me, Jaime,” she tells him, soft and caring, and he finally raises his head to meet her earnest blue eyes. “I’m here. I’m with you. You don’t have to do this alone.”</p><p>She doesn’t tell him it’ll be alright, or that he has no reason to worry, and he loves her all the more for it. They get out of the car together, standing side by side and staring up at the manor like it’ll bite them if they come closer.</p><p>Maybe it will. He wouldn’t be surprised at this point.</p><p>He takes hold of Brienne’s hand without really thinking about it as they slowly walk up to the front door, clutching onto her, his anchor against the storm that’s sure to strike as soon as they step inside. They don’t look at each other, but she squeezes his hand right before the door swings open, and he eases, just slightly. She’s with him. They’ll figure this out together, as they have been since that first project, the first time their lives touched.</p><p>Tyrion’s the first person he sees besides the servant who opened the door, and he gives silent thanks to the gods for that as he drops to his knees and embraces his little brother and they shake against each other with silent sobs they can’t show in front of their father. Brienne places a hand on his shoulder when he finally draws back before offering her own hug to Tyrion, his little brother who looks so much older than his eighteen years in this moment.</p><p>“Thank the gods you’re here,” Tyrion tells them both, wiping at his eyes once Brienne has straightened and taken Jaime’s hand again. “I…I can’t be alone with those two any longer. Not without Mom around.”</p><p>“Cersei blamed you,” Jaime whispers, afraid to speak any louder for fear of summoning one of them here. “When she called. She said it was your fault.”</p><p>Tyrion shakes his head, swallowing back his tears before speaking. “I…I went out that night, met up with a few friends. Bronn was going to drive me back, but he got drunk, so I called her to come pick me up. I didn’t…I didn’t think…”</p><p>He hushes his brother, pulling him into another hug. “It wasn’t your fault, Tyrion. You made the right choice to protect yourself. You couldn’t have known it would lead to her death.”</p><p>“She never made it to get me,” Tyrion says, staring blankly at the wall. “There was another driver, drunk, and…”</p><p>He trails off, unable to finish speaking, and Jaime shakes his head and holds his brother tighter before making eye contact with Brienne, who’s stepped closer and is whispering some wisdom of her own into his brother’s ear. She went through the same guilt when her brother died and she lived. She knows how Tyrion feels right now.</p><p>Footsteps sound somewhere within the house, and they leap apart quickly and straighten their clothes before Cersei rushes in and throws herself into his arms, completely ignoring Tyrion and Brienne in favour of pretending that the last year of chilly silence between them never happened.</p><p>“Jaime!” his twin trills, her red eyes hidden behind an immaculate mask of makeup. “Oh, I’m so glad you’re here. It’s been far too long since we last saw you. Father will be delighted!”</p><p>“Cersei,” he says wearily, stepping back and reaching out blindly for Brienne’s hand again, for the comfort and safety she offers with her warm grip. When they first started dating, she’d have shied away, unwilling or afraid to show such affection in front of his sister, but now she takes it immediately and moves to stand at his shoulder, pulling Tyrion in close to her side as well so he’s not left standing alone. “How are you?”</p><p>“How do you <i>think</i> I am?” she demands, her mask cracking and showing the pain hiding behind it. “Our mother is <i>dead</i> thanks to our monster of a little brother, and you left me alone to take on organizing the funeral by myself. Does our family legacy mean nothing to you, Jaime? Why has it taken you two years and our mother’s death to come back, to return to where you belong?”</p><p>He winces, his head bowing under the weight of her words as she spits her accusations at him, just like their last argument, when she showed up in King’s Landing trying to convince him Brienne was cheating on him with <i>Hyle Hunt</i>, of all people. “I’m sorry I couldn’t be here sooner. I wanted to be, but we had to get time off work first, and it’s not that easy to get last-minute transportation from King’s Landing to Lannisport.”</p><p>“<i>We</i>,” she snaps, glaring at Brienne as if she only just saw her there at his side. “So you’re still dating that beast, then? Tell me, Jaime, do you <i>enjoy</i> humiliating our family in public? Is that why you do it so often?”</p><p>Brienne flinches, and it’s his turn to squeeze her hand as he glares at his sister. “Enough, Cersei. We’re not breaking up any time soon, so if you really want me around you’ll have to learn to deal with having her around. I love her. I’m not dumping her because you think she’s bad for the ‘family image’ or whatever other bullshit it is this time.”</p><p>“Caring about the future of our family is not <i>bullshit</i>,” Cersei snarls, shooting a furious look at Tyrion, crouching in Brienne’s shadow. “Now leave the monsters to each other and come with me. Father wants to speak with you.”</p><p>Jaime shakes his head, giving Brienne’s hand one last squeeze before releasing her to follow his sister upstairs. She and Tyrion will be most comfortable together, so he doesn’t worry about leaving them alone while he goes to deal with his father. But this house does things to people, twists them around inside their own minds until they’re not who they were, or who they want to be. </p><p>Or maybe that’s just his father, whose oppressive presence Jaime can already feel as he approaches the study with Cersei beside him instead of Brienne, with no promise of his mother stepping in should things become too twisted, too much of a mess. Tywin Lannister has only been held in check by his wife for years. Who will he become without her there?</p><p>His father doesn’t look like he’s mourning a beloved wife as he rises to his feet from behind the desk and studies Jaime with cold green eyes. He’s as put together as always, his black suit no different than what he typically wears in Jaime’s memories. Even his expression is familiar as he looks at his eldest son with distaste only defeated by the distaste he used to level at Tyrion when their mother turned his back.</p><p>
  <i>Gods, who’s going to protect Tyrion now?</i>
</p><p>“Jaime,” his father says as Cersei closes the door and moves to stand by the side of the desk, his constant shadow, the perfect heir his father always wanted him to be. “Good to see you remembering your family at long last.”</p><p><i>Brienne is my family</i>, he wants to scream. <i>She cares for me more than any of you do</i>. But he can’t say that to his father, so he only nods and fixes his gaze on the desk, as perfectly immaculate as his father is now. “Father. I’m sorry I couldn’t be here sooner.”</p><p>“You should be.” Tywin Lannister jerks his head sharply at Cersei, dismissing her even as a pained look flits across her face. “You should never have left to begin with, but we can remedy that now.”</p><p>“For fuck’s sake,” he mutters, before looking up and meeting his father’s eyes at last. “Mom just <i>died</i>. We can at least save this conversation for after the funeral, rather than fighting about it when we should be remembering her.”</p><p>“She’d be so disappointed to see you like this.” His father looks him up and down, studying the suit his friend Margaery got him for his last birthday, the careful knot Brienne had made in his tie before pressing a kiss to his cheek and leading him out of the apartment. “I presume you’re still dating the Tarth girl?”</p><p>“Yes.” He refuses to back down from his father’s stare, refuses to let himself be cowed when he’s inevitably told to leave her and marry a more ‘suitable’ woman. “She came with me.”</p><p>His father shakes his head, looking down his nose at Jaime before striding to the door without a backwards glance. “Unfortunate. But I suppose you’re right, we should see your mother buried before we discuss this matter any further. We will continue this after the funeral, however. It is high time you became the man you were meant to be, high time you stopped fooling around in King’s Landing and returned home, where you belong.”</p><p>He leaves, but Jaime pauses in the study for a moment longer, staring at the dark wood panels on the walls, the massive desk separating his father from the rest of the household when he sits behind it. Home, his father says? There’s nothing of home here, no fond memories, no reason to stay. Is he honestly supposed to leave Brienne and come back to <i>this</i>?</p><p>But of course, he forgets. His family view themselves as superior, taught him to do the same before Brienne—quite rightly—told him otherwise. Cersei and his father, they’ll never understand why he prefers the life he and Brienne have made together, the future they’ve tentatively begun to plan for as their financial state stabilizes. They’ll never understand the simple joy that comes from dancing with the woman he loves in the kitchen while they wait for dinner to be done, from lying in bed with their heads resting against each other’s shoulders, from wrapping a blanket around the other when they’re ill, from a thousand small intimacies that make up their lives, day in and day out. </p><p>He’d choose that over this dark and sterile manor any day, but his family will never accept that. Tyrion will, he’s wanted to get out for even longer than Jaime has, but the others…</p><p>He shakes his head and walks out into the hallway, leaving his father’s study behind. He can’t change their minds, can’t make them see how much happier he is now that he’s left all this behind. Do they even care about his happiness, anyways? It certainly doesn’t seem like it, since they’ve tried to sabotage what he and Brienne have so many times.</p><p>The rest of the family is slowly filtering in when he arrives downstairs, and he weaves his way through the dining room where everyone’s gathered, fielding condolences and where-have-you-beens and endless questions until he finds Brienne and Tyrion talking to Aunt Genna near the back of the room, looking far more relaxed than he feels.</p><p>Brienne sees him first and smiles, coming over to him even though there’s only a few steps between them. “You alright?” she asks quietly as he kisses her cheek and returns her smile, ridiculously delighted to see her even though it can’t have been more than half an hour since they parted. “Your father doesn’t look very happy, and I was worried.”</p><p>“He’s not,” he replies, linking his arm with hers so that their sides are pressed together, “but it’s nothing I can’t handle. I think I persuaded him to leave it until after the funeral, anyways.”</p><p>“Good,” she murmurs, before she’s forced to step aside as Aunt Genna barrels into him in the first show of warmth he’s seen from a family member since greeting Tyrion earlier.</p><p>“Jaime, dearest, it’s so good to see you,” his aunt says once she’s squeezed all the breath out of him and stepped back to fully survey him. “You look well. King’s Landing suits you, I suppose.”</p><p>“It does,” he tells her, meeting Brienne’s gaze and smiling again. “Much better than here.”</p><p>“But of course,” she mutters, pinching his ear with the same fondness she’s always had for him. “I’m glad to hear that. Tywin keeps blathering on about how your absence is letting the family down, but I’ve frankly had more than enough of seeing the family kept happy to last me several lifetimes, and I imagine you feel the same way.” She pauses, her expression and tone growing more somber. “I’m so sorry about your mother. I know you two were close.”</p><p>He nods, unable to speak around the lump in his throat. He’s been trying not to think about what his mother’s death means for him, he who was always the most <i>her</i> child of his siblings. It’s easier, when he mourns her loss on the behalf of others, on Tyrion’s behalf, who will live with the guilt of this forever even though it’s <i>not his fault</i>, who will never have his mother’s protection and love again, on Cersei’s behalf, who will never have her mother there when she marries or has children or finally decides escape their father’s clutches and pursue what she wants to do, on Brienne’s behalf, who loved his mother from the start, who had hoped, after he first introduced them, that Joanna Lannister could be the maternal figure she never had, her confidant when his words are not enough, or when his input is not what she needs at any point in time. It’s easier, when he only thinks about what others have lost, and doesn’t remember that he lost his mother, too.</p><p>But, as Aunt Genna has unintentionally reminded him, he lost so much as well. His mother is no longer there for him to run to when hurt or upset, something he has done since he was small and first realized his father would never offer him the comfort he needed. He’ll never be able to ask her advice again should he misstep with Brienne, she won’t be there to see him married, or to meet his children and reassure him he’s not like his father, he’s not going to do it all wrong. He hadn’t realized just how many of his dreams for the future she was in until Cersei called, and those dreams withered and died while he sobbed against Brienne, the only time he’s truly allowed himself to mourn.</p><p>It isn’t until Brienne takes hold of his hand again, pulling him closer with a furrowed brow, that he realizes there are tears in his eyes, that Aunt Genna has moved to comfort Tyrion, to offer his brother the same reassurances only he and Brienne have provided so far. He thinks, distantly and with a hint of hysteria, that it’s a good thing his father is somewhere across the room, talking to one of his many business partners as if his wife hasn’t just died, as if he isn’t at the funeral of the woman he loved, and not staring down his children to ensure they behave as he used to whenever the family gathered together like this. Tywin Lannister does not tolerate weakness, and tears, even at his mother’s funeral, are most decidedly weakness.</p><p>Brienne seems to know what he’s thinking, as always, because she shakes her head and wraps her arms around him, letting him bury his head in her shoulder for the minute it takes him to compose himself to a degree his father would find <i>suitable</i>. She doesn’t tell him it’s alright, or to let it out, already knowing how futile it is, how he’ll never let himself do so as long as he’s in the same house as his father. But when he finally pulls away and they turn to face the rest of the room, the meaningless well-wishers who never knew his mother and don’t know him, she takes his hand once more, her grip firm and warm, and she doesn’t let go.</p><p>						***</p><p>The funeral’s open casket, because of <i>course</i> it is.</p><p>He only looks once, just long enough to see his mother’s face painted white and still, her expression too serious and stiff, before he whirls away and goes to find Brienne again, stuck talking to Lancel and looking very much like she’d rather be fighting a bear than conversing with his cousin, who, according to Genna, has fallen in with some new religious cult as of late yet is still no more interesting than he was before. It’s unclear which of them is more relieved to see the other when he cuts Lancel off and pulls her away with a vague excuse about talking to cousin Cleos, an equally uninteresting conversationalist despite being considerably higher in Jaime’s esteem.</p><p>“She would have hated this,” he whispers to Brienne as they find their places near the front of the sept. “She never liked the spectacle of the galas or the fancy events. She’d be furious to learn that Father turned her funeral into one of them.”</p><p>Brienne nods, turning a sharp glare on his father, who’s hovering beside the casket looking oddly human and doesn’t notice her gaze upon him. “I didn’t know her as well as you did, but I never got the sense she was fond of being put on show, paraded about on your father’s arm while smiling for the crowd. She was more like you, I think, capable of putting on an act but preferring not to.”</p><p>He smiles at her, grateful for the thousandth time that she’s here with him, enduring this despite her own distaste for his father’s showmanship. “That’s why she liked you so much. You never wanted her to be anything but herself. You never wanted <i>me</i> to be anything but myself either, which may be why I fell in love with you.”</p><p>Normally, he wouldn’t be nearly this sappy, would have made some half-meant joke to relieve himself of that near-painful warmth he sometimes feels in his chest when Brienne says or does something that reminds him of how well she knows him, of what love is supposed to feel like. But it’s his mother’s funeral, and they’ve had to deal with his shitty family all day, so he supposes he can allow himself this brief indulgence, this moment where he lets his love for her shine out of his chest and embraces the terrifying depths of it without faltering.</p><p>Her cheeks flush red and it’s her turn to bury her face against his shoulder, hiding her embarrassment as she still does on occasion despite his best efforts to convince her not to. He can’t help but grin when she refuses to look directly at him as she straightens, her face flushed and her eyes sparkling like the clear ocean water around her island home, and it’s this feeling he tries to hold onto when the room falls silent and the septon begins the service with some long droning speech he doesn’t especially care to listen to.</p><p>Tyrion, he’s relieved to see, is still with Genna and her family, meaning he’ll be spared the worst of their father’s wrath for today. Cersei’s positioned a little ways away with Robert Baratheon at her side, pointedly not looking in his direction as if seeing him is a hardship for her. The rest of the sept is filled with people he knows and people he doesn’t, Lannisters and distant cousins and business partners and those invited to fill in the gaps all blending together in a sea of black clothing and falsely mournful expressions.</p><p>How many of these people knew his mother, <i>really</i> knew her? Did any of them see her smile and laugh with her children, or watch her dance through the halls of Casterly Rock when she thought no one was watching? Did any of them know she liked a bit of milk in her coffee, but no sugar, or that she hated casserole but would choke it down if any of her children made it, or that she secretly loved basketball and watched it religiously, year after year? Did they know about her hidden dreams to be more than Tywin Lannister’s wife, or about the scar on her left elbow from a childhood injury, or about how she would rage against her own husband if he dared to insult her youngest son in her presence?</p><p>Did any of them know her at all?</p><p>He supposes a funeral is a time to mourn, to come to terms with your grief over a loved one’s passing, but he’s just angry and tired and sad. This is so <i>fake</i>, so stilted and unlike his mother he wants to scream as some distant relative he can’t remember ever seeing begins another interminable speech about how <i>Joanna was wonderful and kind</i> and <i>it’s a great loss to this world, her death</i>. There’s nothing of his mother here, nothing to make this even ostensibly about her.</p><p><i>I should have come back earlier</i>, he thinks, but would that have helped? Would his presence have kept Cersei and Father from making this into the spectacle they need everything to be? They live their lives in a constant PR stunt, and so does Tyrion most of the time, though his little brother would vehemently deny any similarities to them if the matter were ever brought up. It’s him and his mother who are different—were different. They were the ones too real to be made to recite the same pretty lines over and over. The ones his father despaired over ever making into the puppets he would have preferred them to be.</p><p>But his mother stayed, learned to make her honesty into something charming and endearing, and he fled as soon as he got the chance. He doesn’t regret leaving, would do it again if he went back, but sometimes he wonders with idle curiosity about who he might have become had he stayed. Would he have been his mother, smiling through clenched teeth even when her family infuriated her endlessly? Would he become his father, cruel and harsh and unforgiving of failure? Would he be more like Aunt Genna, uncaring of what any but a select few think of her?</p><p>Does he want to be like any of them?</p><p>No, no he doesn’t. They’re all bitterly unhappy people, his parents and his siblings and his uncles and aunts and cousins who stayed. They dedicate their lives to the service of the Lannister empire, and all they get in return are unhappy marriages and a family they hate with a burning passion. And they can’t leave, because divorce will result in being ostracized, and any other form of flight is a complete severing of contact altogether. He’s only evaded that thus far because his father still holds out hope he’ll come back, leaving Brienne and their friends and the life he’s begun to build for himself away from his father’s influence.</p><p>On occasion, he thinks about his mother and her increasingly tight smiles, her growing reluctance to humour her husband’s requests. Did she want to leave as much as he did? If so, why didn’t she? What held her back?</p><p>He knows the answer to that one, sadly. His father would have kept her from her children had she fled, and no matter how much she might have hated him by the end she would never risk giving them up. She followed him when he left, after all, even if she wasn’t there as much as either of them would have liked. And Tyrion, well, there’s always the need to protect Tyrion.</p><p>He remembers now, though, a conversation with her the last time she came to visit, one she had with Brienne while he was cleaning up after dinner. She’d mentioned a desire to leave, had said she was looking to contact a divorce lawyer and was wondering if Brienne, who was a close contact with Catelyn Stark, might have any connections she could pass on. </p><p>And now, a few short weeks later, she’s dead, and any dream she might have had of escaping her husband’s grasp died with her. </p><p>						***</p><p>The reception is no less awkward and stilted than the funeral itself, even more so when Brienne gets swept off by Aunt Genna and is forced to leave him behind with nothing more than an apologetic look and a quick kiss to the cheek. He’s left to his own devices for a while after that, and is engaged in a not-terrible conversation with Cleos when Cersei materializes at his side again, beckoning him to follow her in the stern way she learned from their father.</p><p>Making his apologies to Cleos—who he’d much rather speak to than most of his family, which is a horribly sad thing to say—he follows his sister into the adjoining room, where their father stands with his hands clasped behind his back, facing out a window overlooking the gardens. </p><p>He’s tempted to groan loudly, but his father is probably angry enough from his earlier dismissal of the conversation, so he bites it back and waits in silence next to his sister. For a moment, he’s taken back to his childhood, to the times his father would summon him into his office and he’d stand in front of the desk, trembling while he waited for his father to speak to him, wishing he could run back outside and play with his siblings and his mother. His father has always had the ability to make him feel small again.</p><p>His father dismisses Cersei with a brisk nod when he finally turns around, and his twin’s face twists with fury for a brief moment before she turns on her heel and stalks away with her head held high. Jaime wants to pity her, but this is the second time she’s dragged him to speak to their father today and he’s tired of her insistence that whatever he’s doing in King’s Landing with Brienne is a phase, something he’ll grow out of sooner or later. She gets that from their father too.</p><p>Tywin looks Jaime up and down with a disdainful expression, making his blood boil with rage as he imagines how his mother would react to that. <i>Barely buried, and you’re already making her children feel like absolute shit. I imagine Mom must be so proud to see her husband hasn’t changed a bit since her death.</i></p><p>“You will come back to Casterly Rock,” his father tells him, as if it’s already been decided, as if it’s certain that Jaime will return at the snap of his father’s fingers. “This charade you’ve been playing has gone on long enough, and I will not tolerate it any longer. Come home, find a more suitable woman to marry, and carry on the family legacy as I raised you to do.”</p><p><i>You didn’t raise me</i>, he wants to scream. <i>You barely looked at me until I was old enough to be groomed as your perfect golden heir</i>. “I’m not leaving Brienne,” he says aloud, knowing voicing the rest of his thoughts will only end in disaster. “You can’t make me, either.”</p><p>His father merely arches one eyebrow, looking as calm and implacable as always in the face of Jaime’s slowly rising wrath. “I can make you do whatever I want you to, Jaime. You’re my son. You will obey. Even your mother did, eventually.”</p><p>“Don’t bring my mother into this at her own fucking funeral.”</p><p>Tywin shakes his head, not even bothering to look directly at his eldest son as he does. “You’re a fool, Jaime. You always have been. The Tarth girl is using you for your money, as so many women will. Your brother is a murderer and a drunkard in the making, and your aunt is a battle long lost. You spend too much time on lost causes and pity cases, and it has made you weak. I never thought a son of mine would be such a disappointment to me.”</p><p>His hands clench into fists at his sides as his fury finally boils over. “Brienne’s not using me for anything. If she was, she’d have left me long ago when she realized how little of the Lannister fortune I brought with me to Oldtown. And Tyrion and Genna are your <i>family</i>. Weren’t you the one who told me not to speak ill of family?”</p><p>“They don’t count,” his father tells him, and that’s what makes Jaime snap at long last.</p><p>“They don’t <i>count</i>? That’s your son and your sister you’re talking about there, and you’re saying they don’t fucking count? By the gods, Father, Mom hasn’t even been buried a whole day yet and you’re already acting like she was never here, already insulting the family she loved and disregarding everything she did to try and make you happy. She would have <i>hated</i> this farce of a memorial, and you damn well know it. It’s no wonder she told us she wanted to leave you the last time she visited!”</p><p>His father tenses, and he realizes a second too late what he’s said. “She told you that, did she?”</p><p>Every time, Jaime thinks he won’t be afraid of his father, that <i>this</i> time is the one he’ll move past the little boy standing hunched over in his father’s office, waiting for some kind of blow to come. And every time, his father turns the full force of his wrath on him, and he’s petrified all over again. </p><p>“She did,” he whispers, his anger fading and his shoulders slumping as he curls in on himself. “Please…”</p><p>He pauses, realizing he can’t plead for his father to not hurt someone who’s already dead and gone. His mother’s as safe as anyone can be from Tywin Lannister now. It’s he who’s in danger, and it’s he who’s alone and afraid, with no prospect of anyone coming to help him.</p><p>Then Brienne’s there, stepping between him and his father, and the world rights itself.</p><p>“What are <i>you</i> doing here?” Tywin demands, clearly unprepared for the wonder that is Brienne Tarth to interfere with whatever plans he had for Jaime. “I thought Cersei told you to leave.”</p><p>“I don’t answer to her, or you,” she tells him, reaching back and taking Jaime’s hand in a move that might be for stability or might be to comfort him. He’s ridiculously grateful for it either way, as he always is whenever she reminds him that she’s here, that she loves him, that nothing his family says or does will ever be enough to drive her away. “And Jaime doesn’t need to answer to you, either.”</p><p>“He is my <i>son</i>.”</p><p>“Exactly,” she spits back, her brilliant eyes blazing, and Jaime wants to capture this moment in his mind for eternity, wants to always remember this moment when Brienne stood between him and his father and said everything she’s been telling him since their first date back in university. “He’s your son, which means you’re supposed to be happy for him when he goes off into the world on his own, when he falls in love with someone who loves him just as deeply, when he makes a successful career for himself without help from anyone else. You’re supposed to comfort him when his mother dies, when his siblings fight and he feels obligated to stop it, when he’s hurt and scared and only wants the comfort of a parent. But you’ve never done any of those things. Instead, you hurt him when he needed reassurance, told him he was wrong for daring to care about people besides himself, bullied his brother relentlessly and made certain he couldn’t do anything about it, and disrespected his mother when you knew full well she never would have wanted any of this at her funeral. You’re a horrible person and a shit father, and if Joanna could see you now she’d be utterly disappointed at what you’ve become.”</p><p>“What do you know of Joanna?” his father demands, so cold and angry that Jaime trembles despite it not being directed at him. “You never met her. You have no right to pass judgement on what she would have wanted.”</p><p>Brienne smiles, cool and calm, and Jaime abruptly realizes that he’d very much like to marry her, as soon as he can arrange for that to happen. “That’s where you’re wrong, actually. I did meet Joanna, many times in fact. And even if I hadn’t met her, I met her son. I know her son.”</p><p>“You mean my son.”</p><p>“No. I mean her son. Jaime may be your child by blood, but you never raised him, and he has nothing of you within him. He is his mother’s son, and if you ever loved Joanna then you would recognize that fact and love him all the more for it.”</p><p>“How <i>dare</i> you insinuate I never loved her! You are nothing more than a foolish girl who knows <i>nothing</i> of what must be done to keep this family from crumbling into the ocean! I <i>never</i> want to see you in my home, not ever again!”</p><p>“That may be so,” Brienne says quietly, meeting his father’s gaze and not once flinching from it, “but you’re wrong. I’m just a foolish girl who loves your son and wants what’s best for him. And staying here, in the same house as you, is not what’s best for him. Don’t worry about seeing me here again. I have no plans to ever come back, and I doubt Jaime does either.”</p><p>“If you walk away now, he’ll be disowned,” Tywin warns them. “He’ll never be allowed back here again. Are you certain doing this is what’s best for him?”</p><p>“I don’t know about her,” Jaime says, finding his voice at last with the reassurance of Brienne by his side, “but I’m certain. Goodbye, Father. I won’t miss you.”</p><p>They walk away together, hands joined, and Jaime could swear that his mother’s spirit is with them, watching over them as they leave Casterly Rock behind and drive off into the future, one that’s now entirely in their hands, one that he likes to think his mother would be proud of had she lived to see them forge it.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>why isn't Tywin mourning like he should be? is it that he's a robot? is it that he was behind his wife's death? who knows? I mean, I actually do this time, but I'm not telling.</p><p>jaime and I both agree that brienne is the actual best, though his timing may be a little off. still, he didn't decide to propose then and there, which bodes well for his future self-control.</p><p>can you believe October's almost over already? how has this happened? someone tell me so I can slow time down before my midterm on Saturday please.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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